Fallen
by GroovyKat
Summary: GS Sara finally breaks...Grissom has another Sara-lookalike victim to process.


Disclaimer: CSI and all their characters aren't mine...Yet... One day the world will be mine!  
  
Sara tossed her keys on the kitchen counter, tossed her navy-blue LVPD Forensics jacket over the back of a chair, dumped her bag on the floor, then scratched her fingers through her hair to shake it out in an end of shift ritual to rid herself of the day. Now, with her hair mussed, fluffy and holding a small kink where she'd had it tied on the drive home, she kicked off her shoes and planned her activities for the next few minutes.  
  
The fridge was her first port of call; she retrieved a bottle of beer and cracked it open, taking a long swig as her eyes scanned the pile of mail she'd dragged in. Bills. The standard end of the month pile, she'd open them all when she felt the desire to whip out her chequebook to satiate the marauding masses that were the utility companies. Underneath them all was a newsletter from the Nevada State Police Association, a pretty expensive looking endeavour that was more a magazine than an actual newsletter. As an employee, she received the "APB" on a bi-monthly basis. She rarely read it, however, it was all just updates on who had reached a milestone year, who was promoted, got married, had babies, etc. She wasn't particularly fascinated by anyone's personal lives. She barely had one herself, why did she want to know about everyone else's?  
  
The back cover caught her attention as she drained the remnants of her first bottle of beer for the evening. His face, stoic and unsmiling as most people in mug shots stared back at her. His blue eyes, still piercing even in grey-scale dithering, stared at her from behind the protective plastic cover of the magazine. Below his picture was the title, "Death and Larval Development: Estimating the time of death with the BlowFly – Gil Grissom Ph.D, Forensic Entomologist". It was something she'd read a little later with another beer and some background music. Right now, all she craved was to slide her body into a warm bath and soak away the memories of the day's crime scene.  
  
Rape. It wasn't something she could easily let go. Facing the perpetrator in crimes against women and children were perhaps her most volatile moments. Today was just the lead in to an investigation that would threaten to drain all of her energy and add to her nightmares and sleepless nights.  
  
Grissom had wanted to pull her off the case the instant that he saw her reaction on the scene. It was obvious even without the kit, that the woman had been raped. She'd been badly beaten, strangled, and then left atop her coffee table with her jeans still pulled up onto one leg, and her panties still shifted to one side. The victim's shirt was ripped in two and creased where the attacker had gripped onto it as he'd violated her. The scoring into skin of the victim's bra, where it had been forced down her chest rather than removed, was a bruising of deep purple and black. She'd been so damaged that there were no pink or red markings. She never stood a chance.  
  
Sara could do nothing but gasp and cover her mouth in shock at the scene. The victim's chocolate brown eyes were looking straight at her, defeated, demoralised and lifeless. It was when she spat "God Damn it!" that Grissom had turned and demanded that she leave. Initially she didn't understand why. She'd never seen him so pushy and insistent that she vacate a crime scene, or a case for that matter. His eyes were wide with an emotion she'd never seen from him before as he physically removed her from the scene. She was shocked when he'd held his hand to her face and asked if she was okay.  
  
Just another one of those Grissom moments, she'd assumed at the time. Another one of his little dangling carrots that he held to ensure she'd stay in Las Vegas. The carrot that he'd quickly snatch away again if she dared to try to get closer. Just like the plant he gave her when she wanted to leave, then the little comments that offered her hope that he might take just a little notice of her existence beyond the lab, Grissom kept the game going. As long as he was in control, the game was on. But the moment she took up the dice and offered to roll them, he'd call foul and back away from the board.  
  
She walked to the fridge and cracked open another beer. She popped two Tylenol 3 pills onto her mouth and used the beer to wash it down. She needed something for her headache, something that only he, or a hit of high- powered painkiller could appease.  
  
He? Grissom, yes, he could help with her headaches if he would stop playing the game. Tension induced, eye aching, nausea inducing headaches that she could honestly say were fifty percent his fault. Why she let him do this to her, she had no idea. As much as she tried to let the hopes of a lifetime by his side fade with his constant denials towards her, she couldn't. He was as under her skin as anyone could be, and she wouldn't let go of their history, present and professional future. It's hard to back away from something and someone that your whole life revolved around.  
  
Another beer and she undid her jeans and ran a bath.  
  
The case had taken a twist that she'd not immediately registered. Grissom had been mindful of her state of mind for a reason. The girl had shoulder length dark hair, wide brown eyes, a light complexion with only a hint of light brown freckles. Her frame was lithe, and of average height, she wore little make-up and didn't have perfectly manicured fingernails and expensive clothing. She lived and dressed in a relaxed manner, appeared studious and solitary, with no immediate signs of either a flat-mate or a live-in boyfriend. In fact, the entire home showed no evidence that too many people even visited.  
  
In short, the victim looked, dressed, and lived just like Sara. Grissom's insistence that she leave the scene escorted by Jim Brass had been perfectly understandable. The emotion in his eyes, that she'd not immediately recognised, had been fear. This had happened once before, and he'd handled the case personally. She allowed a fleeting thought that he'd been horrified because he loved her enough to be heartbroken over the image to cross her mind. His sudden concern and affection, even if just a chaste touching of her face, made this image feel so real. Then, as her brain chided her, reality hit, and she realised that it was just a way to ease her shock. He'd have done the same with Catherine had it been her in the same position. It was professional courtesy, nothing more. He was a boss concerned for the focus and sanity of his employee, not a man in love wanting to protect the object of his affections.  
  
The beer was finished, and she wandered into the kitchen for her fourth in two hours. As she passed by the stereo system, she turned on the radio and sang along to the lyrics of the latest love tune of the month.  
  
Nick had commented on her having a great singing voice early on in her career with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. She was singing an old Blondie song as she analysed some evidence in the dimly lit lab beside Grissom's office. Since then she'd been more conscious about how she sounded. Usually she sang to herself, but knowing others would listen, she did it less often. At home, she was her own audience, and with the inhibitions slowly falling with the help of beer and codeine, she allowed herself to sing loudly.  
  
The bath was full, so was her beer. She slipped off her jeans and socks and threw them on top of her hamper. The long neck of the beer bottle suddenly became her microphone and she stood beside the mirror singing loudly to the soap dish and washcloth. She smirked at them as the song finished, and bowed with a semi-drunken giggle. A softer, more new-age style, song came on the radio and Sara placed her now almost empty beer bottle on the counter. She turned to the mirror as she raked her fingers through her hair to pull it from her face.  
  
She barely recognised the woman staring back at her. Her eyes were sunken and heavy with dark circles framing them, the depth of the darkness highlighted by her paler than chalky skin. The rosy glow one would expect from intoxication was non-existent, as was the glossy wetness of her exhausted faded eyes.  
  
"Do you remember me, I'm just a shadow now."  
  
Her codeine glazed eyes shifted to the doorway of the bathroom as the lyrics filtered along the walls and within the soft current of air in the hallway.  
  
"This is where I used to be. Right here beside you."  
  
There was moisture on her cheek, and s sudden need to sniff as she felt the music circle her shoulders.  
  
"Sometimes I call your name, high on a summer's breeze."  
  
She found herself picking up her bottle of beer and held it to her chest as her feet dragged her towards the source of the music. There was an ache in the back of her throat that made her ignore the cool air of the air- conditioning vents on her bare legs.  
  
"What I would do, to feel the sunlight on my face. What I would do, to be lost in your embrace."  
  
She stood and stared at the small speaker beside the stereo and rocked herself backwards and forwards as she fought any and all emotions that the song was desperately trying to draw from her.  
  
"I've fallen from a distant star, came back, compelled because I love. I'm caught between two different worlds, I long for one more night of love."  
  
She inhaled through her mouth violently, then coughed as the pressure at the back of her throat demanded release. Her cheeks were sodden, and her eyes blurred as the lyrics and music melded into a portrait of her own pain at the hands of her mentor, boss and adored.  
  
"Do you believe in dreams, That's how I found you."  
  
She staggered back from the speaker and forced herself up against the kitchen counter. The neck of her bottle was gripped tightly as if her lifeline. It sat snug against her hip as her arms wrapped around herself.  
  
"But I can't be with you, 'till you take a leap of faith."  
  
The sobs began to surface, starting as small hiccups then escalated into convulsions that rocked her upper body. The choked and strangled sound that came from her throat was almost inhuman, and definitely not Sara Sidle. She found herself having to steady herself from falling with weakened legs, the pent up emotion from three years of frustration finally escaping with a velocity far exceeding a fall from the stars the song suggested.  
  
Her cell-phone chimed. Mid sob, and through eyes full of tears, she glanced at the call display.  
  
Grissom.  
  
Why was he calling now? To call her in to work, to tell her she was needed to start a new investigation? To entice her with his soft voice and gentle words only to shatter the illusion with a request to pull DNA from a piece of material and make sure Greg analyzed it?  
  
Not this time.  
  
Her entire body shook as she took the tiny metal shape into her hand and felt the vibration of the chiming. His name glowed and flashed in her face, a blue light, like her UV lamps. He wanted her to work, which is all he ever wanted. Her breath shortened and quickened as the song returned to its chorus.  
  
"I've fallen from a distant star, came back, compelled because I love. I'm caught between two different worlds, I long for one more night of love."  
  
Her hand tightened around the phone, tightened and released, tightened then...  
  
"LEAVE ME ALONE, I HATE YOU!"  
  
The words exploded from her as she hurled the phone at the wall. It struck, then shattered, it's chime abruptly cutting off as the battery broke from the unit and fell hard against the wood floor. As the last fragment of the phone hit, then bounced across the floor, Sara's knees touched ground. The bottle that she'd been protecting so fiercely fell from her fingers and bounced, then spilled its contents across a decorative mat beside her.  
  
In total release, Sara had slipped down the wall and collapsed into her own sorrow and frustration. There was no sense in controlling the emotions that drugs, alcohol and a broken heart brought to her. With her head slumped forward between her open knees, and her hands covering her eyes, bleeding with tears, Sara completely broke down.  
  
The beer bottle rolled to her foot and pressed against her. Its brown glassy lips in it's open-mouthed smile offered her small release if only she'd hold it again and press her lips to it. For now, though, its mouth would remain untouched by hers, and it would watch sadly as she sobbed and wailed his name in between breaths.  
  
But at least, it would be there for her when she needed it.  
  
Grissom's hand balled into a loose fist and pressed against the hardwood door. His cell-phone hung in his other hand at his hip as her voice answered asking him to leave a message. She was only feet away, and in desperate need of comfort, he could hear her. He could hear her calling out his name as she sobbed.  
  
He could also hear her screaming for him to leave her alone, and that she hated him. The words may have only been screamed once, but he was hearing it over, and over again.  
  
She was more to him than he would ever allow himself to admit to anyone, including himself. To know she was mere feet away, separated by three inches of Oak door, broken down and sobbing because of him made him feel the same hate for himself that she had proclaimed to the shattering phone.  
  
His forehead moved to the door, and lay beside the fist that was slowly tightening, and releasing. As she called out to him, he whispered his apologies. He willed comfort to her, unable to bring himself to knock on the door and offer her his chest to collapse into. But, he didn't leave until he heard her sobbing subside.  
  
As silence from inside indicated she'd probably cried herself to a restless sleep, he ran his hand down the door and pulled himself away.  
  
He glanced back at the door once as he opened the door to his Tahoe and wiped misery of his own from his tired face. With a hoarse whisper he barely heard himself, Grissom made a plea for forgiveness.  
  
"I'm so sorry, Sara. I hate me too."  
  
Why Grissom had chosen to visit Sara, he had no idea. His mind was undecided as to whether or not it was because of concern for her sanity after their crime scene discovery, or because of his own selfish reasons.  
  
It had to be because of his own selfishness. Why else would he have leaned against the doorway when she was broken down inside her home? Why else wouldn't he have knocked on the door and demanded entrance? Why else did he let her sob her brains out, and not offer her comfort?  
  
Why? Because he is an ass. A stubborn ass, to be exact.  
  
A woman who could be Sara was laying on the slab at the morgue, cold, torn, humiliated and alone, ravished and brutalized by a man that was alive, and free. A man who had to be found. A man who had instilled a whole new fear in the otherwise unbreakable Gil Grissom. This wasn't a fear of humiliation of his own, or physical harm to himself. He wasn't even afraid that they wouldn't find the evidence to find, and put the bastard away. What he was afraid of ... was that the woman on the slab could be Sara?  
  
And what would he do if one day it was her? This was the second time now that the victim had been so uncannily Sara-like. It felt like he'd already been given two chances. The third time, would he be working on finding her killer?  
  
Was this just another reminder that life was unpredictable, that you should just take any and all opportunities as they are presented? Even ones that feel so right, and so wrong at the same time? God only knows that he was in a perfect position to know that you can't predict what will happen, and at what point your time on Earth will expire. So why was he holding back from something he wanted so desperately?  
  
Impropriety? Because it was frowned upon for a supervisor to love, or be loved by one of his staff?  
  
Where were they? Highschool? He was the teacher, she his innocent schoolgirl student?  
  
Even he had to chuckle at that image. Once upon a time they were...Kind of. Except she didn't wear a kilt, knee-high socks, and braids.  
  
There was a loud beep from the horn of a car behind him. Grissom looked up to the lights to see they were green. As he lightly stepped on the pedal he wondered just how long he'd been stationary at the lights, and just how many times it must have changed before someone had so kindly decided to make him move.  
  
Sara Sidle. College, friend, trusted partner in investigation. The only person, or thing, capable of derailing his thoughts and giving him a mind full of desires not fitting of a man like him. He dreamt of her in the night (or day as was his case), thought of her over breakfast, watched her during work...imagined her sighing and holding him and giving him everything his heart, mind, body and soul desired.  
  
She'd be capable, and very willing. It was something he wanted...no...needed more than he'd admit. Of course, the current circumstances proved that beyond doubt. The fact that she was alone right now, and that he was driving blindly to whatever destination his automated sense of direction took him, proved to the world that he was either too damned scared, or stupid to act on his feelings.  
  
Speaking of direction...  
  
Grissom looked up as his hand found the keys and turned off the ignition. With a frown he realized that he was back at the crime lab. Twelve o'clock in the afternoon, 10 hours until his shift began, and he was back at the lab. This was apparently now his second home.  
  
With a deep-rooted sigh, he grabbed his briefcase from the passenger seat and climbed out of his vehicle. He may as well do something now that he was here. Searching the body in the morgue for evidence, while the rest of his team was unavailable was, perhaps, a good idea. Nick had been a stressed-out mess, and couldn't look at the victim without muttering Sara's name; Warrick continually cursed under his breath and refused to look at her. Catherine, God bless her, Catherine forced herself to work around her and be as observant as possible. He knew though, that she was handling it as well as the rest of them.  
  
He winced at the vacuum gasp of the morgue doors as he opened it to step inside, instantly the 20 degree drop in temperature hit him, which made him exhale and shudder simultaneously. His hand swatted at the wall in search of the light switch and when contact was made, the room lit up in a blue haze.  
  
He took a breath and stared at the drawer with a label holding a name hand written in black marker. "Jennifer Finch", called "Jenn" by her friends, and "Jenny" by her parents, the girl was loved, even though she lived and probably felt like she wasn't.  
  
"Just like you, Sara," he whispered as he pulled on his latex gloves, then allowed his hand to hover uneasily above the drawer handle. Taking a deep breath, he pulled hard and stepped backward to allow the steel bed to fully emerge out of it's airless cocoon. A white sheet hid her form, but he could still see her outline, he could still see her face, and her hair ... and her lost eyes.  
  
"This isn't Sara, Gil," he convinced himself as he took a breath, closed his eyes and pulled down the sheet. "It's just another victim, someone who needs you to listen to what they want to tell you."  
  
His eyes opened and he found he was looking away from the victim. His eyes stared at a Kidney tray with gauze and swabs delicately balanced within and on top of it. He used that distraction to pull himself away and gather the necessary equipment to gather all the evidence Jennifer had to offer him. All he had to do now was turn to her, take her hand in his and scrape under her fingernails, double check the body for an hair samples that didn't belong to her, and not look at her face.  
  
Once the scraper was in his fingers and Jennifer's cold hand was in his, autonomy took over. Grissom became the emotionless scientist completing yet another experiment, separating himself from thought and feeling to find his conclusive evidence to prove the hypothesis against their suspected perpetrator.  
  
It was most definitely easier to use his scientific brain when dealing with...anything. Science rarely let him down; it was conclusive, honest and to the point.  
  
Much like Sara, actually.  
  
Sara was a science all in her own. She came as a puzzle not yet solved, and offered him a challenge he'd not initially taken. Everything about her was a little piece of evidence, a clue to put it all together. Everything she did, said, saw and gave offered him new information, information that he'd tucked away in the recesses of his mind for filing at a later date. Information that needed to be catalogued and sorted in specific order to be easily accessed when he needed it...Information that was completely blown away and scattered the moment he'd heard her cry.  
  
Sara doesn't cry -- not for work, not for him. She was stronger than that, and he wasn't worth it.  
  
His eyes drifted up to Jennifer's face and lingered on the black and purple around her eyes and mouth. She'd been to Hell and back, then dragged deep under the waters of the river Styx and held there until her last gasp for life had come. No human being deserved that, metaphorically or physically.  
  
His fingers swept away a wisp of hair from Jennifer's cheek, and ran down and along her jawline. In his own mind he saw her brown eyes open and implore his. Coral-tinted lips parted in a smile and she flushed with his gaze.  
  
"God, Sara. What if this was you?" His voice was virtually inaudible as he spoke to the corpse on the table. "I don't know how I'd ...What I'd do without you."  
  
He raised his head to the ceiling and inhaled a deep, rattled breath. His face contorted in confusion and frustration, and he exhaled his breath with a whisper of her name.  
  
There was a clearing of a throat from the doorway, and Grissom dropped his head to look at the intruder. Dr. Robbins slowly made his way to the steel bed and glanced over the victim who still wore Grissom's hand as a headpiece.  
  
"This is a hard one for all of us, Gil. I can only imagine what you and your team are going through."  
  
Grissom pulled his hand away and tugged the sheet back up over Jennifer's head. "She's just another victim who needs our help." His voice was calm in its delivery, devoid of any real emotion. "We can't let her likeness to Sara cloud our judgements or our common sense."  
  
"Easier said than done," he replied in equaled tone and emotion.  
  
"I know." Grissom gave a sigh and pushed the bed back into the wall. "I know."  
  
"Go home, Gil. Get some sleep."  
  
Grissom placed a thankful hand on the Doctor's shoulder and gave a forced smile. He shared nothing further as he walked out of the morgue and into the noon Las Vegas sunshine. Sleep – it was something he was unsure he'd be able to actually do, not until he'd squared things between he and his conscience, and maybe with Sara.  
  
Two weeks later, and any attempt to speak to Sara about ... what his heart and soul needed to talk to her about, but his brain and commonsense vehemently denied, had been quite futile. She had returned to the lab the next night refreshed, beaming and content. She was her normal feisty and flirtatious self, even flirting with him on and off when the situation needed lightening.  
  
This case had needed "lightening" most definitely. Sara seemed to be the only one not affected by the likeness of herself to this woman – something unusual being that she was usually the most emotionally attached to all victims than anyone else on his team. He admired her strength and found himself drawing on it to help him lead his team through the investigation.  
  
It was in record time that the perp' was found and drowned under the ton of evidence that the night shift team had managed to gather. They all felt good ... they all felt DAMN good.  
  
So now life in the LVMPD was back to normal – as normal as one could expect the nocturnal investigators to be. There were new cases, new victims, new bad guys, and new evidence to find.  
  
He looked up from his silver field kit case to find her. She was crouched over a stain on the carpet, her camera hooked in between her thigh and her stomach. While it needed no support, her hand still cradled the expensive piece of equipment by the lens. Her free hand was in a light fist with her index finger straightened and touching at the stain.  
  
"This doesn't look like blood," she stated with her almost husky voice. "It's definitely not a cleaning fluid. It actually looks more like liquefied rust, like red mud."  
  
He noticed that her eyes didn't shift toward him, instead they remained focused on the stain. He was curious, though, to hear her explanation before requesting she test it. "Why's that, Sara?"  
  
"Well..." She paused and furrowed a brow in thought. As she took a breath, her head and eyes rose to him. Grissom had to take a breath at the glint in her eyes from the only unnatural light source in the room, the torch in his hand. She raised her hand to shield her eyes and gave him a smile as he dipped the torch. "Blood quickly turns into a sepia, or rust colour as it dries out, but it has to be dry to flaking before it takes on that shade, right?"  
  
"Right."  
  
"Well this patch here is still a little damp."  
  
Grissom smiled, one of his usual 'teacher pleased over the smart pupil' smiles. "What do you think it is?"  
  
She noticed the smile and returned it with a narrow-eyed grin of her own. "You already know I take it. Why don't you tell me."  
  
"No, Sara, I'm curious, please continue."  
  
Her eyes half-rolled and she turned back to the stain. As she began to offer him her thoughts, she pulled the camera to her face and fiddled with the zoom lens to focus the frame. "It could be mud, dragged in from where the vic had been killed. We already now this isn't the original crime scene, and that the vic was soaked and wrinkled, like he'd been sitting in a pool of water for a while." The room lit up with the strobe of the flash and she held her breath to steady the camera with each shot.  
  
Grissom watched her work and waited for her to continue. He could see her cease in any breathing, speaking, clearing of the throat or even blinking as she steadied the camera to take more shots. Then her eyes shifted to him from behind the camera and she slowly lowered it again.  
  
"I think that the staining here is probably from sediment in the water the victim was laying in before being brought in here."  
  
Grissom pointed to a spot about eight feet from where Sara had been indicating. "The body was found over there, and there is no similar staining at that spot. Why do you suggest that it is from the body, why can't it just be from the coat of an animal who was seeking shelter from the rain outside before we arrived?"  
  
"Will a correct answer on this go toward my final grade, Griss?"  
  
His brow slowly rose at her quip and he removed two swab canisters from his kit. "Answer my question, Sara." He offered an amused smirk as his eyes met hers and he crouched to swab the stain for testing.  
  
"Splatter."  
  
"Splatter?"  
  
"Splatter around the stain. It looks as through something heavy had been dropped from a height of...say a couple to five feet."  
  
"Like something someone carried over their shoulder, and threw to the ground," he finished for her.  
  
Sara nodded and slowly rose to a stand. She adjusted the camera strap to let the camera sit against her hip and looked down at Grissom with a smile. "One of these days I'll work it out before you do."  
  
"That would take all my fun away."  
  
"Making us squirm and have to struggle to come to a conclusion you've already reached is fun to you?"  
  
"Yes." He capped the swabs and looked innocently up at her. "Discovery is the path to learning."  
  
She turned on the ball of her foot and headed to the doorway. "You make less sense to me every day, did you know that?"  
  
Grissom chuckled and watched her exit the room. One of the things his brain and commonsense had allowed in the tug of war with his heart and soul over his feelings for Sara was to repair the strain between the two that had formed since he declined her offer of dinner. His own selfish fear of what could happen in the future between the two had seen him crawl underneath a large rock and stuff his feelings between the crevices. She couldn't hurt them if she couldn't find them, now, could she?  
  
Of course, she was as much to blame as he was. If she hadn't asked, right at that moment, then he may have taken the proposal a little differently. If she hadn't suddenly crawled inside herself and taken away from him those small moments of flirtation and sexual tension they shared, then he'd not have become such an ... How did he describe himself? A closed off Ice King – as opposed to Queen.  
  
But somewhere, somehow, they'd found the point they'd hidden under propositions and dinner invites, and managed to get their friendship back on track. It was a good start, and damn good to have her back. Life was back to normal, well as normal as normal was to Gil Grissom.  
  
He winced as he slowly rose to a stand and his knees protested the sudden move from a crouch to a stand. Shaking off the creak in his joints, he walked back to his case and searched for a scalpel to remove a section of the carpeting for analysis.  
  
It was then that he heard a muffled scream of his name. His head jerked upwards to the doorway, "Sara?"  
  
He heard scuffling and the sound of something large hitting a wall. His fingers were unclipping his weapon even as the dust from the ceiling began to fall with another strike at a wall outside the room. "SARA?!"  
  
There was a masculine grunt, then Sara's voice crying out in shock or pain from the room beside the one he was in. Grissom quickly stepped over his case into the next room. His weapon rose to shoulder height the instant he saw the scene ahead of him. "Let go of her!" His demand was made so as not to be argued with, "or I'll shoot."  
  
There was a moment of silence as the 6'3", 300-pound behemoth of a man that held Sara to the wall with his forearm at her throat and his fist in her gut paused at Grissom's warning. Two sets of heavy and controlled breaths harmonized with the gasping of air from Sara filled the dusty room. Grissom's weapon clicked in preparation for firing. "I said, let her down."  
  
The attacker gave a low, throaty chuckle. "Go ahead, old man," his voice was a heavy tenor and growled deep in his throat. "At this distance, if you shoot me, it'll pass right through and hit her too."  
  
It was beyond Grissom to swear. He rarely saw the need to open his mouth to utter a few choice four-letter words. This time was an exception and the word that formed deep within his belly and rumbled into his throat was not something he'd ever want to utter in the presence of Sara, or any female.  
  
"Fuck."  
  
The attacker was right, unless his aim was true, Grissom could risk shooting Sara as well as the giant in front of him, but if he didn't act soon, the arm at Sara's throat would kill her anyway, she was already close to unconsciousness.  
  
'Take a shot where it'll be less lethal to her," he thought to himself as he aimed his weapon at the back of the attacker. "Forgive me, Sara."  
  
The gun flashed, and kicked back against him as he pulled on the trigger. His eyes forced a blink as unburned gunpowder clouded up into his face. A loud crack sounded out in time with a hiss of pain through the teeth of the attacker. Grissom opened his eyes, worried that he heard nothing from Sara.  
  
"Sara?" His voice staggered her name, the second syllable caught in his throat.  
  
The attacker staggered backward and let go of Sara. He turned on Grissom and growled like a wild animal as he lunged toward him. Reflex action and self preservation took over at that moment, and the forty-something Entomologist grasped his weapon with both hands and emptied the magazine into the aggressor.  
  
Grissom's eyes were clenched shut as he continued to squeeze the trigger until it gave only empty clicks against an empty chamber. It wasn't until he heard the heavy thud of the attacker at his feet, and a final guttural last exhale that his eyes opened again and he searched out Sara.  
  
His entire body shook when he saw her lying awkwardly in a slump on the floor.  
  
"Oh, God, Sara." The words escaped his mouth in little more than a hard whisper, and could barely be heard over the clutter of his gun on the floor as he dropped to his knees beside her. "Sara, I'm sorry, where did I hit you?"  
  
He was answered with a silent, open-eyed and distant gaze.  
  
"Sara?" His mind demanded that he yell her name, but his throat was too constricted to comply. His hand shook as it hovered over her neck, unsure if it really wanted to press his fingers into her skin to check for a pulse. He knew she wasn't breathing, there was no cloud of vapor around her face, no static appearance of breath with each expected exhale.  
  
"C'mon, Honey, this isn't funny," he pleaded, "this is no time for games. I had to shoot at you, he'd have..." He couldn't continue the sentence. His fingers came down on her throat and searched for a pulse as his eyes scanned her chest for any indication of a bullet wound. He found nothing.  
  
No blood.  
  
No bullet wound.  
  
No pulse.  
  
"Oh God, no. No, this can't be happening." His hands locked together and came down on her chest, violently crushing her chest in a desperate attempt at CPR. "C'mon, Sara, I need you to help me here. Don't you dare die on me!"  
  
Her eyes stared blankly upward.  
  
"Sara, please!"  
  
Her body moved with each compression, but no breaths came.  
  
"God, SARA! Not like this! I am not losing you like this!" His mouth moved over hers, and he gave her his breath.  
  
He drew his hands from her neck and head to continue chest compressions. That's when he noticed the awkward fall of her head. He didn't need all of his investigative knowledge to realize that the human neck was not made to position in such a manner.  
  
"Oh, Honey." His voice had returned, if only as a soft monotone audible only to himself. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand as he resigned himself to the fact resuscitation would be impossible. "I ... I never got ... to tell you."  
  
He gently moved her head to a less awkward position and leaned down to kiss her softly on the mouth. The warmth of them was misleading, and for a second he let himself believe she knew he was there and that she was returning the touch of his lips with one of her own.  
  
He opened his eyes to look into her eyes and was suddenly struck by the lack of life within her coffee-brown irises. She wasn't looking at him, and would never hold his gaze in hers again.  
  
That's when it truly hit him, and the knowledge that he'd never hear her voice again finally dawned. His eyes rose to the ceiling, and his fingers grasped at her hair. With a passion he never knew he held, Grissom opened his mouth and called out her name in a long, sorrowful cry...  
  
He pulled her body into his arms and smoothed her hair from her face. Rocking her against him as he succumbed to the sobs that had been sitting at chest level, was all he could do as he repeated her name again, and again, trying to coax her out of her endless sleep.  
  
In the distance he heard sirens approaching, and he frowned with a tilt of his head at the absurdity of it. Unlike the ending of some 80's horror flicks where the sirens indicated a closure to the horror, this only signified the very beginning. In a moment of lost sanity, be began to laugh. An eerie laugh that was both a sob, and an audible exhale of air in a reverse hiccup. Even as Jim Brass entered the room, Grissom acted like a mad man, grasping onto Sara's dead body like her presence was his entire life, half-laughing and sobbing at ... nothing.  
  
Brass crouched beside him, "Gil, what happened?"  
  
Grissom calmed himself and lowered his head, staring upward at his friend through his brows. "She'd dead, Jim. He fucking killed her."  
  
Brass held out his arms to pull Sara from Grissom and was surprised when he pulled sharply from him. "Come on, Gil. This isn't good for you, man. Let me take her."  
  
"No," Grissom growled.  
  
"Gil.."  
  
"No."  
  
"Come on, Gil. For Sara, do this for her, she wouldn't want to see you like this." Brass nodded at two officers who had entered behind him. "Take her."  
  
"NO!" Grissom yelled again, "NO!"  
  
The images ahead of him swirled and brightened, all voices merging within another. His mind and voice still cried out for them to leave he and Sara alone. His heart still ached and stung with an intensity he'd doubt a massive coronary would be able to match. With one last desperate cry as he felt her pull from his arms, Grissom clenched his eyes shut and sat bolt upright.  
  
"SARA NO-O-O-O!  
  
Silence. His scream had brought them all to silence. There was no more scuffling, no murmuring, and no sounds of sirens. All he could hear now was the steady hum of a ceiling fan and the 'whoosh' of the blades slicing through the air. His own panted breaths hissed against the hand at his face, escaping through the cracks in his fingers. His body shuddered with the cool kiss of air from the fan onto his sweat-drenched shoulders and arms.  
  
Slowly, he opened his eyes and was rewarded with the orange-red blur of his fingers covering his face. He let them slide down his face and let out a long breath of relief when he realised that the fan above his head, and the silence in the room was because it was 2 in the afternoon, and he was holed up in his own bedroom, tangled in his own sheets.  
  
It had all been one hell of a bad dream. A bad, bad dream.  
  
Grissom couldn't believe that relief could be so painful. His heart still hammered so viciously in his chest that it ached, his eyes were still raw from tears that had flowed in his dream as well as in life. The tight hold of the pillow at his chest, that he had appeared to be guarding with his life, made his arms ache. He collapsed back into his pillows and brought his forearm over his eyes, hissing through his teeth as new tears fell into already forged tracks on his cheeks.  
  
Sara. He had to make sure Sara was okay.  
  
Of course she was okay, it was just a dream.  
  
Ending the argument his conscience was having with his brain, Grissom fumbled along the bedside table for his cellphone. He found it after three unsuccessful attempts and one smashed glass of water. She was #1 in his speed dial and he let the phone do the dialling as he pulled the phone to his ear.  
  
"You've reached Sara Sidle of the Las Vegas Crime Lab. You know the drill, either leave a number, or page me."  
  
"Dammit, Sara." He hissed into the phone as his brain reminded him that she'd shattered the phone earlier this morning when he'd tried to call her. "Sorry, Sara, it's Grissom, I'll try you at home."  
  
Why he left a message at all was a mystery to him, perhaps it is because his voice saying "Dammit Sara" and nothing else would possibly be taken the wrong way when she got her phone replaced and listened to her saved messages. With a frown, he closed his eyes and tried to dig in the recesses of his mind for her home number. In amongst the files and folders she'd scattered earlier when he heard her cry over him, he managed to locate it. He gently punched them into his phone then brought it to his ear and waited.  
  
It connected and the ringing tone buzzed in his ear.  
  
Three.  
  
Four.  
  
Five.  
  
"C'mon Sara, pick up," he pleaded with her phone. Eventually after 6 rings, the click of the receiver picked up.  
  
"Hi, it's Sara. I'm probably at my second home tight now, so just –" There was a click, a clunk and a long, tired groan. "Yeah?"  
  
Grissom wasn't totally prepared to hear her voice so husky and full of sleep. He hesitated in saying anything.  
  
"Hello? Who is this?" She didn't sound impressed, or even awake.  
  
"Sara?"  
  
There was a pause, then her voice, gentle and confused. "Grissom?" She paused, but he heard a stretching groan as if to suggest she was looking for a clock. "It's 2pm."  
  
He held back from slapping his hand to his forehead. "Sorry about that, I just –"He stopped. What was he supposed to say? 'Sorry Sara, I had a bad dream and wanted to call you because I was scared?' That was just absurd.  
  
"Do you need me to come in or something?" She yawned, rather loudly. "You'll have to give me an hour at least."  
  
"No, no. That isn't why I called." He answered quickly.  
  
She spoke to him inside a softer yawn. "Then what is it?"  
  
"I want to know how you're doing. You know, with this case." He was reaching.  
  
"Can't we talk about this tonight? At the office...Where there's coffee?"  
  
He had to chuckle. "I'd prefer to talk with you alone and without interruption. Can I come over?"  
  
"Let's not and say you did," she answered softly. "Griss, I'm fine, okay. I'm just tired. Let me sleep."  
  
Grissom frowned. She wasn't making this very easy on him. "How about I take you to dinner before shift?" There was silence from the other end. For a moment he thought she'd gone to sleep on him. "Sara?"  
  
"I'm here." He heard her take a deep breath, then exhale.  
  
"Well?"  
  
"I don't think that's a good idea, Grissom."  
  
He sighed heavily, annoyed in himself more than her being so reluctant to meet up with him. "We really need to talk, Sara. "  
  
"Is it really that important that it can't wait until we're at the lab?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"If you need privacy, then you'd probably better come over here." She yawned again, and he could hear her stretch and walk around her apartment. "Shift is at 10, come over for 7?"  
  
"Thank you, Sara, I'll see you then." He heard her yawn and nod her head at the same time, which gave the impression that she open-mouth hummed her acceptance.  
  
She hung up first, and he was left with the disconnecting beeping in his ear. He held onto the receiver for a moment longer as if flipping the phone closed would disconnect her from his life. Then, with a laugh to himself, he snapped it shut and slid down the mattress to gain more comfort to attempt to go back to sleep.  
  
He'd meet with her in five hours. He had no idea what he was going to say to her...  
  
Five hours wasn't such a long time.  
  
On one hand, it was an eternity. Wanting to make things right and actually see her to talk about what the Hell had happened between them over the past twelve months to make their relationship dissipate so badly made the wait torturous.  
  
On the other hand, there was too little time for rehearsal and preparation. For all his literary brilliance and ability to find quotes and passages to suit any and all situations, Grissom was at a total loss. He had absolutely no idea how to even begin the conversation. With Sara, his approach would all have to depend on her mood. If she was still in the state she was when he left her apartment this morning (or the night- shifter's "night" before), then he'd have problems. Sara pissed off was an easy mark, he was used to her volatility when the right triggers had been pulled. Sara in a flirtatious and relaxed mood was easy also, that was his favorite side of her.  
  
Of course, Sara with tears in her eyes and a pout in place of her beautiful smile was the hardest side of her to take. He'd seen her upset during cases, and let her vent a little on him when she needed to talk. He was rarely any real help to her beyond letting her speak. He tried, but it seemed that every time he opened his mouth, something she didn't want to hear flew out. She'd always end up leaving his office with the final word and a heavy sigh, and Grissom would remain seated more confused than ever about her.  
  
Confused, yes, she was still that unsolved little puzzle of his.  
  
Perhaps next time, he should try to do what most people do with friends ... Take her into his arms and let her get it all out.  
  
Grissom took a breath, erased his previous thoughts from his mind and knocked on the door. When he heard movement inside, his head, and gaze, lowered to the mat at the door.  
  
There were two different species of grass, a mud scrape and what looked like a coffee stain. Light coloring, the pot used to make this particular stain was either over saturating the beans and filter, or the blend was unusually milder than she would usually drink. He resisted the urge to crouch and swab, just to be sure.  
  
"Grissom?"  
  
He looked up like he would have with the arrival of Brass to a crime scene and removed his glasses. "Sara." Her name was said in his usual emotionless manner, a typical Grissom greeting.  
  
She took a toothbrush from her mouth and looked down to where he'd been staring. "Analyzing the scene again, Griss?"  
  
"I was wondering where you bought your coffee," he answered as he pointed to the staining on the mat. "This doesn't seem rich enough to be from the lab."  
  
She rolled her eyes, "actually, it is from the lab. Due to the administrative screw up that sees us being given tar instead of coffee beans, I was forced to water it down." She opened the door and stepped back to let him in. "But I know you're not here to discuss coffee, so both of us standing on my doorstep staring at it is pointless."  
  
He cleared his throat in a small cough, covered his mouth with his fist and followed behind her. With her back still to him, she directed him to the couch with a wave of her arm.  
  
"I'll make you a coffee, just let me finish brushing my teeth." She disappeared into another room, she continued to speak to him and he had strain to hear her through walls and toothbrush. "Make yourself comfortable, excuse the mess."  
  
Grissom looked around as he settled into the couch. The room wasn't exactly a mess, there were a couple of things out of place, but all items were things she'd likely gather together to take into work that evening. Her phone was definitely badly damaged, the pieces had been gathered and piled in a small mess on the coffee table. He poked through the pieces with his index finger and considered piecing it together as a jigsaw. A half-finished crossword sat beside it. He bit at his lip and wondered if it would be rude of him to change one of the answers she had entered to what he believed it should be. Absently, he dragged it toward him with a finger and began to finish it in his mind.  
  
"Go ahead, if it'll keep you occupied while I make you coffee." She interrupted his thoughts as she strolled back into the room and stepped behind the breakfast bar to make them both a coffee.  
  
"Uh, no. I'll leave you to finish it."  
  
She looked up at him with a small smile, then returned to her task. "So what did you need to talk about?"  
  
He pulled both hands back into him and threaded his fingers through each other as his forearms met with his knees. "I just wanted to know how you are."  
  
Her eyes met with his again, "and?"  
  
"And? There is no and, with this new case, and the victim, I wanted to make sure that you're holding up alright." He hoped she didn't hear the uncertainty in his tone.  
  
"You woke me up at 2pm demanding that we meet up to talk, just to ask me if I am creeped out by someone who looks like me?" She set a coffee in front of him, then took a seat on an armchair to his side. "Grissom, we've seen it before. I'm fine, just another case and another victim."  
  
He looked down at the cup, then swept his eyes along the table to eventually meet hers. "We both know that's not exactly true."  
  
Sara's head tilted curiously, "for me ... or for you?" She watched him open and close his mouth trying to find the words to answer her, and decided to save him the trouble by continuing. "You wouldn't let me anywhere near the victim, I haven't seen her, nor the photos. You have me processing the evidence found on the perimeter of the scene, and random samples pulled from the body. I have absolutely no cause to be bothered by this at all."  
  
He let out a breath.  
  
She continued without letting him speak, "is it bothering you? I know Nick and Warrick are feeling uncomfortable about it. Catherine ... well Catherine is acting as Catherine, she and I aren't exactly best friends so it isn't like the thought of me on the table will bother her."  
  
"That's not true, Sara."  
  
"If you pulled your head out of your paperwork for five minutes, you'd know it was."  
  
It was Grissom's turn to give her the 'tilted head' look. He cupped the mug with both hands and blew at the steam. "Catherine just has a lot on her mind right now, she seems bitchy, but really she means well."  
  
Sara humphed and took a small sip of her coffee.  
  
Grissom continued, "she does admire your skill as a CSI, Sara. She just has an unusual way of showing it."  
  
"She isn't the only one with that problem."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
Sara sat back deeply in the cushions of her armchair and let her headrest against the back. Her fingers tapped against the mug in her hand, "you didn't answer my question."  
  
"Which was?"  
  
"Is this case bothering you?"  
  
Grissom's eyes widened for a moment. He was unprepared for the question, and even less prepared to answer it honestly. "The emotional wellbeing of my C.S.I.'s concerns me more than the victim in the morgue."  
  
"It's a yes or no question, Grissom."  
  
Was that a hint of amusement that he picked up in her tone of voice? He frowned, then set the mug back on the table. Once again his hands found each other and merged fingers into a single fist. "Honestly?"  
  
She raised a brow as if to tell him that was a stupid question.  
  
"Am I disturbed because this is the second time I've had to look into what could be your eyes and see no signs of life?" He watched her expression widen in surprise. "Yes, it does bother me."  
  
"Oh." She appeared quite stunned at his admission.  
  
Gil Grissom, CSI supervisor, then kicked back into play, "I'd be disturbed to see any of you like that."  
  
If he could describe the feeling of his head imploding at her sudden glare at him, Grissom would. His quick save in trying to convince himself this wasn't merely because it was Sara that this victim looked like unfortunately had a very negative effect on the calm atmosphere in the room. Whilst the expected explosion from Sara hadn't actually happened, her stare at him and sudden strong breathing had about the same impact.  
  
He resorted to his usual method of diffusing her ire – a soft call of her name, "Sara."  
  
"You know, Grissom, this could have been discussed back at the lab. Perhaps you could organize a big group therapy session where we can all introduce ourselves and talk about our problems with this case."  
  
He detected a definite undertone of sadness in her facetious comment. She had expected something else, and he'd not given it to her. He let a brow drop in disappointment in himself and breathed her name again, "Sara, please, let's not..."  
  
She interrupted him with a hiss, "not what Grissom? Not care about each other? Not be the friends that people who spend two thirds of their daily lives with should be?" She took a large mouthful of her coffee and winced at the burn of the still-hot liquid down her throat. "I have no idea why you came here, Grissom. Why don't you just go home?"  
  
He grunted, cracked his neck, and slowly rose to a stand. "I'm sorry, Sara. I shouldn't have come here tonight."  
  
Her eyes rose as he stood, and she stared up at him with a creased brow of an emotion he couldn't exactly decipher. Her voice softened as he turned his back to her to leave. "Why did you come here?"  
  
His voicebox seemed to cease functioning when he answered, he hoped she'd be able to hear the words, though, on his breath. "Because I care."   
  
Sara gasped at his silent admission. She rose quickly from her chair and closed the distance between them both. As he pulled the door open to leave, she pressed her hand against it to close it again. "Say that again."  
  
He sighed and kept his focus on the crack in the doorway that still offered a little light from the setting sun outside. "What? You find it so difficult to believe that I actually care?" His eyes slid to where she stood beside him. "Contrary to what you all believe, I am not an emotionless old twit. I hurt and bleed and get scared just like you all do, and seeing an image of one of you on that steel slab in the morgue stabs at something in me that I..." he exhaled loudly. "Never mind Sara, you're right. Just another victim, and another crime."  
  
Sara touched her hand to his arm. "We're all human, Griss, we all care. This job," she sighed and let her hand move gently down his arm toward his elbow. "It affects us all. God, I've been in your office so many times at breaking point because of the pain we see in victims and their families."  
  
"You've been broken over much more than that."  
  
She pulled back and tilted her head at him. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Us."  
  
That single, two-letter word coming from his lips made her step backward. Her tone became scratched. "There is no 'us'."  
  
He raised his head to the ceiling and sighed. "What happened, Sara? God, we used to be much more than this." His head lowered again and he turned his gaze to her. "We used to enjoy working alongside each other in the field and in the lab, now we seem to be constantly at odds with each other."  
  
"You pushed me away. You stopped teaching me, you stopped guiding me, you began to expect more from me than I could offer. When it came down to it, you chose Catherine's support and friendship over mine."  
  
He gave a tiny, single laugh. "Less dangerous."  
  
"What?"  
  
Grissom turned and leaned his back against the doorway with his hands behind his rump. "My willpower isn't tested with her. You ... You are a different story."  
  
Sara's face contorted to one of complete confusion. "I don't understand. Grissom, I ... I came here to learn from you, to work alongside you and learn everything you were willing to teach. I...If I—"  
  
"You've taught me as well, Sara. Lessons I never wanted to learn."  
  
She was close to returning to the state she was earlier in the day. "Grissom, what are you trying to tell me? That you are sorry I came to Vegas?"  
  
His head rolled on the wood to look at her. "Far from it."  
  
"Then what? God, tell me what!" She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and took on a stance of a child ready to throw a tantrum. "Everything about you is a cryptic little puzzle! One minute you're slipping me little compliments and handing me little shards of hope that you just may be interested in pursuing something further. The next, you're thrusting my heart back into my face with denials and words like 'I don't know what to do about this'. Tell me now, once and for all – What do you want?"  
  
He regarded her for a long moment in silence, the only sound around them being her heavy and frustrated breaths. She needed him to speak, and he knew he had to do something. What did he want? He wasn't sure he really even knew himself. "Sara, I." He stopped and lowered his head. "I should go, I shouldn't be doing this to either of us."  
  
She watched him peel himself from the door and slowly turn to leave. As his hand turned the handle, she let out a staggered, emotionally heavy breath. "So be it, then. I understand now. I'm sorry that I can't be what you need."  
  
The door was open only a couple of inches and he could feel the heat of the evening breeze kiss at the black fabric of his pants. Her voice was so strained to him, so full of pain. Why did he continually do this to the woman he knew he could deeply care for...That he did deeply care for? When he heard her sniff back a stubborn tear, he gritted his teeth, and pushed the door shut again.  
  
There was no other thought in his head besides finding her. With eyes blurred from the bright sunlight from the doorway, he blindly stepped forward, cupped her face in his hands and crushed his mouth against hers. In her shock, Sara's lips parted in an airless gasp. He took that advantage to dive deeper within her, using all of his fear and panic to deepen the passion of his kiss.  
  
Sara wasn't sure how to react, her arms hung at her sides and, while her mouth responded to him, her body did not. She stood stiff and awkward, supported only by his hold on her face. Though her vision was blurred through the tears that refused to shift and fall, she could see his face. His eyes were held tightly closed, his brows drawn in a frown.  
  
He didn't want this...  
  
She raised her hands to his chest and pushed him away from her. "Grissom, don't."  
  
He didn't relinquish his hold on her face, but his mouth moved from hers. He panted and searched out something in her eyes to tell him what he'd done wrong this time. "Don't?"  
  
Her hand rose to cover his and she gently removed them from her cheeks. "I can't take another rejection from you, Griss. If you don't mean it, don't do it."  
  
"But I thought?"  
  
She gave a short laugh, "says the man who tells us all not to think." She let her fingers sweep down the center of his chest.  
  
He took her hand and held it at chest, his other hand reached up to stroke her cheek. "Thinking gets us into trouble."  
  
"Needing and wanting are even more dangerous." Sara sighed and leaned her face into his hand. "I've learned that the hard way."  
  
His thumb traced her lips and he took a step closer to her. "Denial is far worse." He let his mouth hover over hers, his parted lips letting his words ghost across her mouth. "I don't want to deny you anymore."  
  
She could feel the brush of his lips as they formed his words and let a slight tremor curse through her body. "You have to want it too."  
  
His hands moved to behind her hips and he drew her closer, pulling her body into his. When he spoke, his words were husky and full of want. "I do." The breath it took to say the last word was barely expelled before he claimed her mouth again. This time she responded fully, her arms slid around his neck and her body pressed against him. When he tugged her shirt from her pants and let his hands slide underneath to pull her yet closer, she let out a whimper into his mouth.  
  
"Griss, I wa—"  
  
Something at their hips was moving in between them. It shook in a silent demand to be noticed, then let out a shrill ring. He immediately pulled away from her and looked down at his phone. "Hell."  
  
Sara wiped gently at her mouth with the back of her hand and seemed to stagger a little to take a step backward. "Do you have to answer it?"  
  
The phone continued ringing, and shaking on his belt. "How long until shift?"  
  
Her fingers were now pressed on her swollen lips. "A little over two hours."  
  
He grunted and removed the phone from his belt. Watching her as she rolled her eyes and groaned in displeasure, Grissom flipped open his phone. He ignored the voice on the other end and found the on/off button. The annoying piece of electronic distraction was immediately silenced, then thrown onto the couch. His pager followed closely behind it.  
  
"They can wait."  
  
Sara gasped as he took her into his arms, again, and claimed her neck forcefully. She swatted at the counter at her hip for the remote for her stereo system with the intention of drowning out any sounds she knew would reverberate around the paper-thin walls within a matter of minutes. It was found as his body stooped to pick her up into a cradle-hold, and he slowly made his way towards her bedroom.  
  
The music came on with a sudden blur of noise as Grissom kicked the door closed behind him.  
  
"Do you believe in dreams? That's how I found you. But I can't be revealed, 'til you take a leap of faith. What I would give, to feel the sunlight on my face. What I would give, to be lost in your embrace. I've fallen from a distant star; I've come back, compelled because of love. I'm caught between two different worlds, I long for one more night on earth..." 


End file.
